Healthy habits vs. self care. What's the difference?
I have been practicing yoga for almost 20 years,
It has truly informed how I live the best life possible.
I can not imagine what my life without it.
The biggest gift I have received from my yoga practice,
is awareness.
It is such a simple concept yet it is everything.
Awareness is defines as: knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.
When I speak of the awareness yoga offered me, this is more along the lines of perception of the self.
The seat of the witness concsciousness.
Being able to see your self from an objective perspective.
It’s kind of an out of body experience.
View yourself from the outside.
Why is this important?
Without it, real personal growth and change is not possible.
Awareness allows you to be objective with compassion,
to yourself and others.
It is simply to observe and allow.
Then, change accordingly to achieve the desired results.
When you become aware,
you take responsibility for your thoughts, emotions and actions.
You can make informed decisions from a place of emotional adulthood,
because you know growth, change, joy and satisfaction are available to you.
There are many ways to stay in tune with this type of mindful thinking.
Meditation, journaling, yoga practice, contemplative walks.
These practices give space for your inner voice, your intuition, to be heard.
Recently, I have had the calling to slow down.
To really take time to just be, think and treat my self with extra care without rushing.
Really noticing my body. What it looks and feels like to the touch.
This is hard for me.
I am on the go most of the day.
I run two business, a house hold, have pets and a 3 year old.
I love every moment of it.
We are all busy.
But we make choices of what take precedent.
These priorities change and should.
If you are not in a cycle of changing, you are probably out of balance.
I know my body, mind and spirit call for different things at different times of the day, month and year.
And surly as I take more trips around the sun, my needs are defined with greater clarity.
For many years, my movement practice, from weight training to hiking, is a daily must do.
If fills me up. Gives me confidence and does inform me of what’s going on with my body.
If also encourages other healthy life style habits like water intake and eating a plant based diet.
however, It is still an active activity.
For many years, really most of my life, this was how I defiend my self care.
It was my number one priority.
As I continue to grow and understand my divine famine nature,
I am called to shift my focus on more subtle activities of nurturing.
The activities may be subtle but the need for their presence and their power, not so much.
The more I awaken to a part of me that may have been dormant for life times,
the presence of deep spiritually activating rituals
is a necessity for growth and personal success.
It is how I KNOW what to do next.
It is my new self care.
With out it, I am foggy and make decisions from a place of shoulds rather than must.
This atonement or realignment,
can come in the form of many things.
From my morning ritual to
lighting a candle for my self and the world.
Or
My personal favorite, walks for the sake of walks. To be with nature, by my self.
No music, no phone, no podcasts. Just me, Gaia, Life and maybe Llewey (my sweet dog).
These practices and more simply put are the things that
FEED MY SOUL.
But the truth is, most anything can with, guess what, AWARENESS!
To answer my own question, the difference between healthy habits vs. self care is just that, awareness.
Adding active awareness to any activity creates an intention and makes it a ritual.
Keep celebrating the ritual that is your LIFE!
There’s room for you here.
If you aren’t sure you know how, email or call me and we can make a time for a free heart to heart coaching mini session. I would love to help you celebrate!
Enjoy today.
Mary